The Left Hand of Atlantis
by Kthonia
Summary: Season 2. The team discovers a wraith artifact on a recently culled planet. Then a mysterious woman drops in on Atlantis to demand the object's destruction. Why should they trust this stranger? She says, "Call Doctor Beckett to come and take a blood sample from me for DNA typing." The surprising results explain it all. Homage to Ursula K. le Guin.


"The Left Hand of Atlantis"

A Stargate: Atlantis Story

The dead planet's main temple resembled a military bunker like the ones in which American atomic scientists had hunkered during the Cold War for observing tests of the early atomic bombs. Very little of the temple showed above ground, although the science team had performed sonar probes of the soil to prove that the building went down three to four subterranean stories.

What showed of the temple's roof came to knee height on Colonel John Sheppard as he strolled the perimeter with his P-90 automatic held ready. If so much as a cricket stirred in the rubble, he was ready to shoot it.

"Any luck yet, Rodney?" Sheppard called.

"Well, if you would stop asking that every ten minutes, I might be able to concentrate! That is, unless you'd rather I rush through the permutations of transceiver frequencies, find the wrong one, trigger a booby trap or set off some fail safe mechanism that sends the whole system into a catastrophic meltdown, in which case we'll lose any chance of finding out what these inscriptions refer to."

Sheppard turned a shoulder to the group of scientists. "Just do your best."

Half a dozen team members knelt at the inscription-laden threshold. The group's attention focused on the laptop plugged into the locked doorway. They looked like figurines in a Christmas Nativity scene: shepherds, wise men, barnyard animals, Mary and Joseph all fixated on a child in the manger. _Scientists_, Sheppard thought. _You tell them something isn't working, and they get excited about it._

Sheppard tapped the earpiece of his headset. A fuzzy click signaled the open transmission. He said, "Major, report?"

The voice in his earpiece answered, "The Stargate is secure, Sir. No activity. Everything's quiet."

"Roger that, major. Sheppard out."

He turned in place to survey the open countryside. Farm fields in knitted rows of crops stretched as far as his squinting eyes could see. Clumps of broccoli, lettuce in dark green bouquets, carrot fronds, balls of pumpkins, and stalks of wheat—all hung heavy and ripe, waiting to be picked and eaten. Ploughs and rakes lay rusting in the open air. Wagons overturned were not set a-right. Here and there, a shoe or a glove discarded in the moist soil hinted at what had happened.

No survivors had been found.

Sheppard's eyes squinted to the bright sky. He searched the serene blue for signs of the horror that had befallen the people of this unnamed world. Wraith dart ships would not leave tracks in the air. Their transporter beams would not scar the clouds. The ravenous aliens had scooped up their human prey, leaving everything else behind, and vanished through the Stargate. All that these people had built, all that they had spent their lives hoping for and working for, had come to nothing in the end.

The temple's inscriptions promised a treasure within. "The tool of salvation against the life-eaters," or so Dr. McKay had rendered the translation. Sheppard thought grimly, _It didn't do them much good in the end, did it? We're wasting time here_.

"McKay?" Sheppard called again to the science team. "You've got five more minutes, and then we're—"

"Got it!" Dr. McKay jumped to his feet and extended his arm with a magician's flourish.

A rectangular block of the brick slab separated from the threshold. Stone grinding on stone whined a high grating pitch. Vapors with the scent of cinnamon wafted from the hollow.

"Get back, get back." Sheppard made his way to the fore of the group. Machine gun ready, he took a stand at the threshold and gazed into a stairwell as dark and deep as the entrance to a storm cellar. He switched on the flashlight mounted atop his weapon. The beam penetrated the darkness enough to display stairs of the same beige bricks as the rest of the temple.

"The rest of you stay here." Sheppard took one step down.

McKay came up behind him. He carried a .9-mm pistol in one hand and a mag flashlight in the other.

Sheppard glanced over his shoulder at the doctor's determined but nervous frown. The right thing to do would be to send him back to guard the others; McKay was the only scientist who had earned minimal experience with firearms, but if Ancient technology were in the basement of the buried temple he would need Rodney at his side to figure it out. Saying nothing, Sheppard continued descent, allowing McKay to follow right behind.

Twenty-eight steps straight down ended in a chamber roughly twelve feet square. No other doors led in or out of a dead end. Sheppard turned in place at the base of the stairs and cast his flashlight beam full-circle over the walls.

"No King Tut's tomb," Sheppard remarked.

Hand prints made in red or green paint were stamped all over the walls and ceiling. Some hand prints overlapped while some left gaps. "Whoa," Sheppard commented. He extended his own hand as a rough measurement. None of the hand prints were children's; all belonged to adults. _Why?_

McKay headed for a stout black box in the center of the room. It was the only object there. "This has to be it." He set his mag flashlight on its end and the glow reflecting off the ceiling created a pale amber illumination.

Sheppard still held his weapon ready to shoot anything that might come down the stairs or leap from the walls. "A box? We went through all this trouble for a box?"

"It's what's _in_ the box, obviously." McKay grasped the gold rings affixed to either end. "It only weighs about three or four kilograms. We can bring it back to Atlantis for study. See? You'll still be home in time for supper."

"Wait!"

Sheppard's shout came too late; McKay had already picked it up. As the doctor came to stand, smiling with box in hand, the temple's tiled floor quivered and shook. The temple's walls shifted in their base like elevator doors stuck trying to open.

Sheppard smacked McKay on the shoulder. "Damnit... Indiana Jones!"

"Huh?"

Dust sprinkled from the ceiling.

"Move!" Sheppard pushed McKay towards the stairs.

Both men ran up the bricks. They huffed and pumped their legs. The walls of the stairwell groaned and squeezed inwards inch by inch.

McKay jumped to the clear. The walls pressed in closer and tighter, almost as if the bricks themselves were angry that one man had gotten free. Sheppard had to turn himself sideways near the top. He skidded up the last few steps as the inward-closing walls scraped the pouches of his bulletproof vest.

He made a dive for it like sliding for home base. The barrel of his P-90 keyed a deep scratch in one side as the butt of the gun chipped the opposite wall. He yanked his foot clear in the few inches before the bricks clapped firmly shut.

But McKay just smiled holding the black box. "We got it. Piece of cake."

Sheppard lay sideways in the grass and glared up at him. "Piece of cake? I hope you choke on it."

#

McKay set up the black box in his laboratory on a table beneath the quiet sterile lighting of the City of Atlantis. Six hours later, he still had not managed to open it or discover its contents. The box proved impenetrable to X-ray, MRI, and even the scanning technology of the Ancients. All that he and his team could do was measure it, weigh it, and stare at it.

Dr. Elizabeth Weir sauntered in carrying an insulated coffee mug close to her chest. "Hello, Rodney," she said. "How's it coming?"

McKay gripped the edge of the table as he glared over the smooth black cube. "It weighs four-point-one kilograms, it measures twenty-seven by twenty-six by twenty centimeters, and it's constructed of a mineral-metallic alloy…obsidian and silver. The handles are solid gold."

"Interesting." She sipped her coffee.

"It has no lid, no hinge, no seam. We can't penetrate it with any scanning technology we have, Ancient or otherwise. But I know…" McKay banged his fist on the table. "… I just know it's hollow! The inscription promised there would be a treasure inside the temple, something that gave the inhabitants of that world the power to sustain themselves through repeated culling by the wraith. 'The tool of salvation against the life-eaters,' it promised. Our aerial survey estimates that the network of villages could have supported upwards of five thousand people. There must be something inside this box that can help us!"

"Maybe," Weir said as she strolled around the table. "The inhabitants of this world took whatever it was and evacuated before the last culling. Maybe this is just a dais, a stand or a platform, for something else that's been taken."

McKay rubbed his eyes. "No, no."

"Get some sleep, Rodney. We're not in crisis at the moment. You can take your time to solve this puzzle."

McKay fingered one of the box's handles, a solid gold bar melded somehow to the side of the strange hybrid material. "Just once, you know, I'd like to be able to solve a problem while I'm not being shot at, or while the klaxon to the self-destruct is not clanging a countdown."

Weir smiled. "If it's meant to be, it'll—"

An alarm clanged. The lights dimmed to half-bright amber. "Oh, there we go. See? Start the countdown."

She tapped her headset's earpiece. "This is Weir. What's going on?"

"The Stargate activated…" Sheppard's voice said. "Incoming… The traveler's sent a code overriding the shield… I'm on my way…"

She headed for the door. "I'm right behind you."

McKay called, "What? What?" as he dogged her heels into the corridor.

The two of them ran through deserted corridors, for the science teams knew well enough by now to lock down and stay out of the way when alarms rang.

#

Military teams were already in position at the gate room. As Weir hopped up the ramp to the main amphitheater, she came smack up against the backsides of a row of marines in camo gear. They had built themselves into a wall of fatigues and bulletproof vests. Automatic weapons aimed at the shimmering blue liquid center of the Stargate, ready to shoot at whatever would come through.

"John!" she called.

"Keep down!" Sheppard yelled back over the clanging of the alarm. He lay on his belly at the head of the main staircase, facing the Stargate, his P-90's barrel aimed right at the empty air. "We can't shut the shield… We can't stop them… Heads up, everybody!"

The pointed nose of a shuttlecock-shaped ship poked through, followed by the full form of a wraith dart. Weir shuddered. Her heart went cold. _One of them… here… inside Atlantis…_ Her eyes widened to take in the living, waking nightmare unfolding before her.

The blackish dart emerged slowly and smoothly, as if pulled by wires, and stopped as soon as its rear jets cleared the ring.

Sheppard fired first. The row of marines let loose with automatic weapons. Weir winced at the drumming timpani of rapid fire. Ammunition shells sprinkled around their feet. Bullets ping-pinged off the dart's hull. The hideous craft hovered at the very center of the control room, halfway in between the Stargate and the bottom-lit golden stairway. _No damage_.

"Oh, so you really think shooting at it will do a damned thing?" McKay shouted as the weapons drowned out his voice.

The Stargate shut down and went dark. Still, the dart hovered about five feet off the floor. Its pointy nose aimed at the glowing staircase while hundreds of bullets per second bounced off its grainy hull.

"Cease fire!" Weir shouted. "Cease fire!"

Sheppard raised his hand. Weapons stopped blasting. Weir shook her head to the ringing in her ears.

Slowly, the wraith dart sank towards the floor and with a hiss settled onto the sleek tiles. Its grayish-blue hatch unsealed with a voiced sigh and slid away. The cockpit opened to view.

Weapons clicked and cocked. Barrels aimed at the occupant.

"Don't shoot!" called a very human voice from the pilot's seat of the dart.

A woman of natural grace and glamor raised her hands. She wore biker gloves studded at the knuckles and fingertips cut free. Smooth, clean auburn hair hung in straight fronds past her shoulders. Sun-starved skin was whiter than the gray mesh of her drab flight suit.

"Are you boys finished wasting ammo?" she asked in a sultry voice.

"I'm Doctor Elizabeth Weir, and you are…?"

Her lips turned up to amusement or congeniality—hard to judge. "My call sign is Reboot. I'll answer to that."

Weir stepped cautiously closer to the wraith dart. "Not exactly what I asked but it's a start. If you wouldn't mind stepping into my office, we have quite a few questions for you."

"Yeah," Sheppard piped up. "Starting with why the hell you're flying that damned thing and how you penetrated our Stargate's shield."

"Sure." Reboot stood up from the pilot's seat. Head-to-toe, she wore a zipped-front gray flight suit of generic design. A tool belt encircled her hips and the leather pouches sagged thick with pistols, cords, and various hand weapons. She brought her legs out and revealed heavy-soled biker boots studded with buckles and brass dots.

A row of P-90s and automatic rifle barrels stayed aimed at her. Narrowed eyes, shadowed by black caps, squinted over the sights.

Sheppard trotted down the stairway and took his place alongside Weir. He pointed to her weapons belt. "You're gonna need to leave your fashion accessories right here, Reboot. No guns allowed in Dodge City."

Reboot stared into his tight blue eyes for a moment. More than just reacting to his words, she seemed lost in thought at the sight of him close up. Weir made a mental note to keep that under observation and ask about it later. Something wasn't right about this woman; more than just the fact that she was an unidentified stranger and that she flew a wraith dart. _Could she be a Genii, with that red hair and underground complexion?_

Reboot unbuckled her tool belt and happily handed it over to Sheppard.

Meanwhile, McKay hurried over to the wraith dart and leaned into the cockpit. "I see what you've done here! You've jerry-rigged it with a trans-colloidal interface terminal. Brilliant. May I…?"

Reboot uttered the word, "Close hatch." The pilot's canopy slid shut and sealed with a moist hiss. "Sorry, McKay. I don't like people snooping around my hard work. It took me seven months to rig this interface and set up a firewall against the wraith network. Think of it as trade secrets."

"Of course," he said stiffly.

Sheppard extended his arm toward the stairway. "This way?"

The three of them ascended the stairs in single-file with Sheppard leading the way, Reboot strolling in the middle, and Weir bringing up the rear. McKay trotted on their heels past the DHD console, the gleaming crystal panels and scattered laptop computers plugged into Ancient technology with blue cables. People swiveled in their chairs as the stranger passed by.

Reboot kept her head tall, looking neither left nor right, and followed Sheppard straight into the glass-walled controller's office.

#

Weir took her place behind the sleek glass desk. Sheppard stood guard at the door and cradled his P-90 like a newborn babe. Reboot settled into one of the two chairs facing the desk and crossed her legs like a lady—not an easy feat with the weighty biker boots she wore.

"Sorry to startle you all." Reboot had an unhurried way of speaking and the lilt of a lost foreign accent. Her reassuring tone felt vaguely familiar but Weir could not finger the source.

"Next time, call first," Sheppard quipped.

"If I had the leisure to make a more diplomatic appearance, I would have," Reboot continued. "But my time is short. So is yours. If I'm not mistaken, you've recently visited a planet that was culled by the wraith leaving no survivors. A temple buried in the sand bore an inscription on its entrance, something like, 'a weapon against the life-suckers,' and you've retrieved an impenetrable box."

"Yes!" McKay ignored Sheppard's scolding glare and stepped close beside her. "How did you know? And, by the way, how do you know my name?"

"What?"

"Just now, down there, you said my name."

Reboot shrugged. "No, I didn't."

"Yeah, you did," Sheppard said. "I heard it, too."

"Honestly, Colonel," she said with a plastic smile. "I must have heard someone shout to him during all the shooting. I had my audio receivers wide open to monitor…"

"And..." Sheppard stepped to the edge of the glass desk and leaned down to her face. He wore only his black T-shirt and fatigues; his rank was not on display. "I never introduced myself, either. Do you _know_ us somehow? Where are you from?"

Reboot glanced away. Again, Weir saw more clearly this time a blush of recognition; pink came easily to such pale cheeks. Cold suspicions curdled in her gut, and Weir's mind buzzed with speculation as to which enemy world had sent this spy among them. _The Genii… The Brotherhood… Or, worse, the human allies of the wraith…_

"The box," Reboot said after a pause. "The box is what we should be talking about. It's a dangerous weapon and it needs to be jettisoned into the corona of the sun before it does the damage that I know it will."

Weir cocked an eyebrow. "Are you from that dead planet? Does it belong to you?"

Reboot rolled her eyes and, strangely, resembled Colonel Sheppard in those times when asked a question he did not want to answer. "It would be really easy for me to say, yes. None of you would know the difference. But, I'm not going to lie to you."

"I appreciate that, I really do. However, without more information about this so-called weapon, we can't be expected to take your word that it should be destroyed." Weir leaned forward in her chair. "Now, shall we begin again? Who are you, and where are you from?"

Reboot looked down to her lap. "You won't believe it."

"Try me."

The woman opened wide her greenish-hazel eyes and angled her gaze from Sheppard to McKay. "All right, call Doctor Beckett to come and take a blood sample from me for DNA typing."

Sheppard stepped back. "Damnit, you _do_ know everybody here. Are you a spy for the Genii?"

"Maybe she's an Ancient," McKay quipped.

"Honestly, I'm neither. But, what I really am…" Reboot swiveled in her chair to stare thoughtfully through the glass wall to the amphitheater of the gate room. "…you won't believe without proof. I'll be wasting my time, and yours, in circuitous dialogue. Words are never enough."

"Perhaps," said Weir. "But words are a start."

"Call Doctor Beckett to take my blood sample, and you can lock me up in the brig until the results come back. Just promise me, McKay, that neither you—or anyone on your team—won't diddle around with that box until my DNA profile is on the table?"

"For your information, I don't 'diddle around' with things."

Sheppard shot him a hard look, and McKay fell quiet.

#

Sheppard and a squad of marines escorted Reboot to an outdoors patio balcony that overlooked the ocean awash with golden hues in the dwindling hours of the afternoon. Reboot put her hands to the railing and tossed her long auburn hair to the salty breezes. The glory of a clean-air sunset lit up a corona around her.

"No brig?" she asked, still facing the ocean.

"Nope." Sheppard waved off the squad of marines. They retreated and took position inside the corridor. The glass-paneled doors slid in from both sides and fit together like puzzle pieces. "I mean, unless you want to take a five-hundred foot dive into the harbor's wharf, there's really nowhere for you to go."

"Maybe the whales would catch me."

"Nah, I've already had a talk with Willy and Shamu and told 'em you're our guest."

Reboot half turned to him and spread her lips to a smile. For a moment, Sheppard felt speechless; the woman was gorgeous enough to rival any magazine cover. Beneath the baggy gray flight suit, her body had the poise and strength of an Olympic gold-medalist speed skater. Despite his suspicions and wariness, he could not help taking just a moment to admire her form and grace. A warm thump in his heart hoped that she was not a spy or an agent of a hostile alien force. Just once, he thought, he would like to meet a pretty girl and have her be just a girl.

"From the way I think you're looking at me," she said, "I should tell you right off the bat, there's not a zillionth of a chance that you and I will ever hook up, John. Nothing personal. It just _can't_ happen."

Sheppard sauntered towards the railing and took up a spot just out of arm's reach of her. "Whoa, ouch. You don't believe in letting guys down easy, huh?"

"There is no 'easy' in a galaxy ravaged by those mother-suckers." Her pale skin flushed to a pink as deep as the sunset behind her. "You obviously haven't seen the worst of them yet."

Sheppard's mood dimmed as memories drifted like fog across his thoughts. "And I suppose you have?"

"When I was eleven years old, I watched the wraith put their hands on everyone I loved, or hated, or ignored. Everyone! My parents, my extended family, my community and my home were devoured." Reboot's voice stayed calm, her face remained a glamorous mask, but her harsh words chilled Sheppard all the more for her composure. "Things stopped being easy for me after that."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks." Reboot clasped her gloved hands together. "That was fifteen years ago. I'm fine now."

"Sure you are."

"I grew up in hiding protected by the one person of my home world who survived for my sake. She took me in her arms and ran away. Don't misunderstand: it wasn't an act of cowardice. It was the ultimate sacrifice. She could have stayed and fought and died along with the rest of them. She made the painful choice to live, to save me, to honor my parents' memory."

Sheppard breathed deeply hearing this. For all his suspicions of her, at least the pain in her voice had the ring of truth. "Where did you go? How did you survive?"

"We took shelter in the one place that the mother-suckers would not come looking for us: on the wraith home world itself."

"What? That's crazy."

"The wraith, in their hunger for human life-flesh, are often sailing away through the Stargate for prey. In their arrogance, they leave their home world guarded against invasion but they do not police inside the world itself. Once through the perimeter, we roamed pretty much free. We survived by scraping what we could find in the parched and blackened soil. There are vast pockets of desert and volcanic caves. Sometimes we disguised ourselves and infiltrated the villages of Renfields—"

"The who?"

"Renfields… those humans who turned traitor to their own species, who traded their own lives and freedom for so-called benevolence from the wraith. A small number are kept as pets or slaves in service to their monstrous masters."

"Yeah, I've met some. Real charming folks, if they weren't so twisted. But why do you call them Renfields?"

Reboot shrugged. "I don't know. Always have since forever."

A chill gripped Sheppard's gut and he looked at her anew. Renfield was a character in the original Dracula film who was the human servant of the vampire. He wondered, how could such a term come to the mind of this woman in another galaxy? Something else about her face drew his fascination, the spacing between her eyes, the straightness of her nose, the shape of her mouth. Impossibly, in this light she resembled his cousin Susan.

A frown grew in his eyebrows and slowly soured the rest of his face. Thoughts swirled in his mind and pieces of what she had said so far turned in the blend. A familiar face… _Renfields_… DNA blood tests… _You wouldn't believe it… Jerry-rigged… brilliant… _

"Marty McFly," he whispered.

"What'd you say?"

"Don't…" Sheppard backed away. "Don't go anywhere."

#

Sheppard lightly ran the maze of hard-angled corridors. He passed through slanted columns inscribed in the Ancient language and trotted up open-sided golden stairways. He did not slow down until he reached the door to the Medical Center. Gold-rimmed glass panels parted at his approach. He stepped through without losing a beat in his pace.

"Beckett!" he called. "How are those DNA tests coming?"

Doctor Beckett stood at a lab table, shaking his head at a microscope. "I've ran the test three times," he said. "I don't believe it."

Elizabeth Weir stood by the wall with folded arms. "He keeps saying that. Carson, can you please tell me the results?"

Doctor Beckett settled onto his lab stool and frowned a frown of perpetual worry. "Well, she's human but she's got the Ancient gene. Naturally, not the synthetic version. And… Maybe I should run it one more time?"

Sheppard rested a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Let me help you out, Doc. I'm guessing she's, uh, my daughter?"

"What!" Weir gasped.

"I think she's from the future," Sheppard added.

Doctor Beckett bobbed his head nodding. "Yes, yes, that would explain a lot. Her blood type and her DNA are a 99 percent match to yours, Colonel, along with the DNA of… of, well, someone else in Atlantis."

"Who?" Weir asked.

"I'm not sure I'm at liberty to say," Beckett answered. "Especially if, like you say, she could be from our future, then whatever relationship brought about, or will bring about, this child..."

"Hasn't happened yet," Sheppard finished.

"Exactly."

Weir paced in short steps before the lab table. "But, you're certain it's one of us in Atlantis who's going to be the mother?"

Tight-lipped, Beckett nodded.

Weir raised an eyebrow. "Please say it's not me?"

"It's not you, Elizabeth."

"Thank God," she said.

"Hey," Sheppard objected.

"Sorry, John. No offense."

"Yeah, well, none taken… I guess." He shot one more pouting look at her, then returned his full attention to the doctor.

Beckett swiveled on his stool to stare at the Colonel. "So, how did you know?"

"I was just talking to her. A few things sort of clicked, like the way she knew all of our names, along with the fact that she's the spitting image of my cousin Susan who everyone teases for looking like me. Boy, when she said we wouldn't believe it, she wasn't kidding."

"What I don't understand," said Weir. "Is why she would travel back in time to this moment, and why she asked for the DNA test. Surely she knew it would expose her identity and she runs the risk of disturbing the timeline, perhaps affecting the future and her very existence."

Sheppard hardly blinked. "Did you ever have one of those days where you wish you'd never been born?"

Weir and Beckett both shook their heads. "No."

"Well, count yourselves lucky. I think my… my little girl has literally had one sucky life."

#

Armed guards escorted Reboot to the conference room and, when she took a seat, they stood behind her chair. She took a moment to run her fingers down her auburn hair in a small gesture to arrange the feathery locks neatly alongside her face.

Doctor Weir took her usual place at the opposite side of the bronze-painted table. Her senior staff settled into chairs where they wished: Sheppard with his lieutenants, and the natives of this universe Teyla Emmagan with Ronon Dex. McKay always with a laptop, Doctor Zelenka tapped another laptop at his side. Doctor Beckett held the clipboard of lab results. No one could help but stare at the auburn-haired woman in the gray flight suit who poised so serenely.

McKay spoke first. "I don't see it. Well, maybe around the eyes a little."

"The DNA tests came back, I assume?" Reboot asked.

"Yes," said Doctor Beckett, all stiff and professional. "I've confirmed that Colonel Sheppard is—or, will be—your biological father. Someone else currently on staff here in Atlantis, who shall remain anonymous, is your biological mother."

Sheppard glanced to Teyla, and she avoided his look.

"Colonel Sheppard has assumed you're from the future," Weir said. "Is that right?"

Reboot turned instead to the Athosian woman across the table. She laid a hand flat onto the tabletop as if to touch Teyla's knee from four feet away. "It's not you, Teyla. Although, after Atlantis will be destroyed by the wraith, you'll be the one to rescue me and raise me. You could have stayed, and fought, and died with the rest of them, but you will sacrifice your vengeance to preserve my life. You raised me alone. You taught me to fight. You kept me sane. In every way except one, you are like a mother to me."

"I am honored," Teyla said, in her usual, unhurried tone.

Doctor Weir felt a slight shiver. That was the style of speech that, from the first, had seemed so familiar. Unmistakably, Reboot sounded like Teyla but with a more natural American accent. _But it could be a lie_, she thought. _Stilted, formal speech can be learned or faked. This could all be a performance to gain our confidence_.

"Yes, yes, yes," McKay said. "This is all a very touching family reunion, except for the fact that none of this has happened yet. Your coming here has opened up a whole slough of temporal paradoxes! For all we know, you have already set into motion a series of contradictions and events that will obliterate your future existence."

"The question being," Reboot picked up on McKay's beat. "If I prevent myself from being conceived and born, then how could I exist in the future to travel back in time and take these actions that prevent my birth in the first place? I'm surprised at you, McKay, thinking in such primitive terms of Einsteinian paradoxes, when Chaos Theory, Quantum Physics and your own experiences with the Stargate posit a multi-faceted universe that is not linear at all."

"Whoa," Sheppard chuckled. "That's my girl, huh?"

"What I've done is expanded the dart's compression beaming technology to create a reverse-polarized warp bubble—your favorite word, daddy— inside the Stargate's singularity threshold."

"You got the idea from him?" McKay practically squeaked.

"Actually, it was a hypothetical that you and Doctor Zelenka toyed with when I was a kid. I used to hang out in the lab and help do data encoding or CADD simulations. When I had the idea to do it for real, I had to rebuild everything from memory… in the dark… while occasionally under fire. I'm as surprised as you are that I've successfully pulled off a Madeleine L'Engle."

"A what?" McKay asked.

"'A wrinkle in time,'" Reboot said. "Don't you read?"

"Of course I read, everything from Newton to Hawking. I have an autographed copy of Brian Greene's 'Elegant Universe.'"

"No, I mean fiction. For my tenth birthday, the crew of the _Daedalus_ brought me a collection of books. You know, the classics: Tolkein, Heinlein, Bradbury, LeGuin, Anderson, Clarke…"

Weir leaned forward. "Excuse me, but I think we're getting off on a tangent. Putting aside the cosmic implications of your time-travel, the real question before us is why?"

All eyes turned to Reboot. She took a deep breath before answering.

"I can tell you the _day_. I can tell you the _hour_. I can tell you _how_ the wraith penetrate your defenses and destroy Atlantis. Very simply, Elizabeth, I am here to save your collective asses from being wiped out. You of all people should understand, having done some time travel and altering of the future yourself. It's the City and the Team that matters. Whatever might happen to me is immaterial."

Weir raised an eyebrow at the reference to a past adventure. If this woman were a spy for the Genii or even the Goa'uld, she might have hacked into the mission logs transmitted back to Stargate Command. On the other hand, there was a slim chance that Reboot was telling the truth.

McKay snapped his fingers. "It's something to do with the black box?"

"They don't call him a genius for nothing," Reboot said, rolling her eyes toward the arched ceiling.

"But won't you tell us what's in the box? What does it do? Is it a transmitter?"

Reboot shook her head. "Not exactly, but the wraith can track it telepathically. As long as you have it, you are in danger. Just get rid of it."

#

Teyla closed herself in her quarters, alone, and kept the lights off. Silver twilight glimmered through the sheer veils that draped the high windows. Her bootfalls on the tiled floor reverberated up to the cathedral ceiling. Although the temperature was constant and moderate, she shivered and rubbed her bare arms. Inside these walls, in the City of the Ancestors, she felt no more safe than in the woods at night.

Thoughts buzzed in her mind. In the future, Atlantis would be destroyed? Everyone, for all their courage and weaponry, would be consumed? Perhaps the people from Earth dreaded the news or feared the prediction, but Teyla had always accepted it as a fact of life that wraith ate human beings. Only for this brief period living among the Earth people had she begun to imagine a different outcome.

_I alone will survive_, she thought as heavy tears welled up in her eyes. _Can it be true? Would I take John's only child in my arms and run away from the dead and dying? Would I abandon my lifetime duty to my own people and leave them to be culled down to the last?_

The laptop computer chimed.

Teyla wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She walked to the desk, sat down, and tapped the keypad to respond.

The flat screen came alive with the web-cam image of a blond-haired man with a strong yet kind face. Her kinsman from her native world. He smiled in greeting as he said, "Good evening, Teyla."

"Good evening, Halling. How is your day?"

Halling's wide blue eyes peered intently from the screen at her. "Teyla, are you upset? Is something wrong? Are we in danger?"

"No. Not today. There is a… a visitor. I will tell you all about it when I come to visit on the weekend."

Halling's eyes turned downward for a moment. "That would be… Let's see…"

A youth's voice off-screen said, "Three days from now, Dad."

"Yes," Teyla said patiently. "Jinto is right."

"I have one of their calendars right here." Halling smiled with strained confidence and tapped at a point below the screen's frame. "Such a strange system to separate two days from five. Why are you not teaching them the calendar of the Ancestors?"

Teyla shrugged. "The Earth people are sometimes hard to teach new things. Be patient with them, Halling."

"I try. I have been patient for almost two years but the time is coming. We will have many things to discuss when you come to the village on the _weekend_. The coffee trees are not thriving in this new soil, and we no longer wish to grow them. To roast the seeds of bitter cherries and grind them into a drink does not honor the ancestors. Some of the young people are starting to drink this coffee, too.."

"Dad, come on," said the youth from off-screen. "It's just a cup or two in the morning. Don't make it sound like such a big deal."

Halling's eyes drooped wearily as he turned back to face the computer screen. "You will have to tell the Earth people that we intend to rip the coffee trees out, once the rains are done, and plan more tuttleroot and kaga squash. My judgment is pending on the peanut bushes and the raspberry weeds."

"Whatever you decide to do with the farms, Halling, I will negotiate a good trade with Doctor Weir." More ideas came to mind that she leaned forward to say, "Halling, you cannot keep the young people from changing. They will chat, and blog, and challenge the traditions of the ancestors but in their hearts they love their parents. Perhaps it is not our way but it is the way of the Earth people…"

"You are spending too much time with them, Teyla. Have you forgotten that they once considered destroying the City of the Ancestors?"

"To keep it out of the hands of the wraith! To prevent the wraith from using the Stargate to reach Earth."

Halling bowed his head and his long hair hung like curtains on either side of his face. "Yes, of course. Forgive me if I am sometimes sad at heart that our own world Athos has already been culled and scorched. The worst has already happened to us. I would not wish this upon anyone… even the Earth people."

Teyla stroked the edge of the laptop's screen. _The wraith cannot have any more of you_, she thought_. I will not allow such a future to come true_.

#

Sheppard piloted the Jumper craft. A lieutenant sat in the co-pilot's seat. The others had seats in the rear compartment: Teyla and McKay to one side, and Ronan informally guarding Reboot at the other. McKay held onto the container for The Box locked and sealed shut. No one said a thing for at least twenty minutes after launching from Atlantis… not even McKay.

"I'll get us as close as we can to the sun," Sheppard said. "E.T.A. is about ten minutes. McKay, you ready to jettison that thing?"

"Yeah." McKay rested a hand on the container. His pale fingers tensed at the corners.

Teyla said to Reboot, "I cannot help but ask whether this is strange or difficult for you. I can hardly imagine how it would feel if I were to go backwards in time and see my own parents alive again."

"You believe me?"

"Perhaps," Teyla said. "You will forgive me if I still harbor some doubts."

"Absolutely." Reboot shifted on the hard bench's seat and leaned herself against the broad arm of Ronon sitting next to her. "It is kind of weird, I'll admit, to see you all alive again. It's such a rush of feelings that I can hardly explain. I've forgotten what it's like to feel well-lit and safe. For so long I have dwelled in darkness in the heartland of Hell."

"You really grew up on the wraith home world?" Ronon asked softly under his breath.

"In caves, gullies, the roots of dead black trees. I don't think I've slept in a bed, or slept more than five hours straight, in a dozen years."

"I know the feeling," Ronon said.

"Part of my survival is thanks to you, Runner. I learned to run with silent feet, and I learned to will my heart to slow its beat by playing hide-and-seek."

"I played with you?" he asked.

McKay chuckled from across the aisle. "Him? Play?"

"All the time. When I was a little kid, I used to ride on these big shoulders." She stroked Ronon's bare biceps, her palm tracing the way over his broad shoulders. Her fingertips explored the tattoo at his collarbone, and slipped under his loosely-bound long dreadlocks.

"Uh, what are you doing?" he asked softly while inclining his face cooperatively toward hers.

"I'm not a kid with a crush anymore." Reboot dipped herself under his chin. "It's not so weird for me to want to..."

Her neck stretched upwards and brought up her mouth to connect to his. Ronon furrowed his brows thoughtfully then gave in to the kiss. He inhaled and held his breath as if drinking from a straw something delicious.

"Well," McKay exclaimed. "Isn't this interesting? She travels back in time to save Atlantis and, oh, while we're at it, let's make out with the new guy?"

Teyla withdrew beneath the shadows of the overhanging shelf. "It is not polite to stare."

"What's going on back there?" Sheppard called from the pilot's seat.

Reboot broke off the kiss with a soft smack. "Nothing, daddy."

"Oh, she definitely _your_ kid," McKay finished.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sheppard asked, now half-turning in his chair to look over his shoulder. "Aw, never mind. I'm trying to concentrate on driving up here. It's a thought-controlled ship, remember?"

Silence returned to the Jumper compartment, tempered by the low hum of the sublight engines and the baby's breath whoosh of the air circulation system. Ronon unmoving continued to stare at her.

McKay blurted, "All right, I've got a question. This whole thing doesn't make sense to me. I mean, what you're doing here by coming back in time and changing the course of events is, basically, an elaborate form of suicide. Am I right?"

"Maybe, I suppose."

"All I'm saying is, wasn't there an easier way? If your life is really so awful and so miserable, couldn't you just… you know, end it all like anybody else?"

Reboot smoothed a hand over her straight, clean hair. "Sucking a gun barrel has occurred to me, sure. Who hasn't?"

Ronon nodded along with her.

"But what I'm doing here is changing more than just my life. Hell, I gave up caring much about my own life long ago. What I'm doing is saving _you_… all of you, my parents, the City of Atlantis, the Athosians, the crew of the Daedalus, and probably Earth itself."

McKay tapped the box's container. "And getting rid of this is part of it?"

"Yes."

"Then why won't you tell us more about how it works? What it does? Here we are ready to jettison this thing into the sun, and—"

"It's wraith technology, okay?" Reboot cut in. "It's a standard component on any Hive ship. How the people of that world got a-hold of it, I don't know. What it does… How it works… None of it really matters, except that it's wraith-ish and it's bad."

"That's it?" McKay asked. "We're supposed to just take you at your word? 'It's bad.' We're not a bunch of three year olds. Tell me what it does."

"No."

"Do you know?" he challenged.

"Yes."

He cackled a bitter laugh. "Why not tell us, if we're about to destroy it?"

Reboot leaned forward. "Because if I tell you what it does, you might get the wrong ideas. You might start fantasizing about using it for yourselves like the people of that world were using it. You'll see it not as a weapon but as a tool, or maybe a fun toy, and in your arrogance you'll imagine that you can control the use of it."

"Arrogance?" Ronon with brawny arms folded gave a light chuckle. "Him?"

"The power of the atom can either destroy a city or power a city," Reboot said. "It's not about what it is, or what it does, but _how_ it is used. Not to mention that, because it's wraith technology, the wraith can track it telepathically. Get it? This is how they come to Atlantis in the end to destroy you all. You're holding not just a weapon but a homing device."

Sheppard called out, "E.T.A. one minute. Rodney, get ready to jettison that thing."

"No."

"What?" Sheppard swiveled around in his pilot's chair.

"No, I'm not going to destroy it. I'm still not sure if I believe her, or not, and I don't know even the broadest schematics of what this device really does! Am I the only one who has a problem with this whole mission?" He pointed at Reboot. "You want to talk about arrogance?"

Reboot crossed her legs, one heavy biker boot dangling in mid-air. "Okay, I'll tell you."

"Finally!"

"Basically, the box metamorphs people into something else. Whoever opens the lid will be physically changed."

"Into what?" McKay asked.

Reboot pinched at the cuffs of her fingerless gloves. "That's all I'm going to say about that, except to emphasize the fact that it does not give you superhuman powers, the keys to the universe, or the ability to commune with the whales. It just… _changes_ you. Some people, like the people of that world, thought it was for the better, but in the end it didn't do them any good. At best, it's an amusing toy. At worst, it can extinguish an entire population."

"Changes them," Teyla mused aloud. "So they cannot have children?"

Reboot nodded, her eyes widening for the first time to show the full circles of her greenish-hazel irises. "Yes, yes, very perceptive. But then, you always were."

McKay's hand slid away from the container. "It makes people sterile?"

"No," Reboot corrected. "I didn't say that. I said it changes people."

"Jeez," Sheppard exclaimed. "Like what almost happened to me when I was bitten by—"

"No, it doesn't change people into bugs." Reboot clamped her gloved hands over her eyes, as if getting a headache. She spoke through her wrists. "Stop asking questions. The more I tell you, the more you'll be hearing things that you'd rather not know. Just get rid of it."

"Fine." McKay rose from the bench and carried the box towards the rear of the Jumper compartment. He unscrewed a small hatch and raised the box toward the opening.

"Wait." Ronon grabbed Reboot's left hand. He stroked her brass-studded leather glove across the knuckles. "You're missing one stud."

"It fell off," Reboot said. "So?"

Sheppard called, "Rodney? We're as close as we're going to get to the sun. Jettison that thing, and let's go home."

"Wait, wait!" Ronon got up, still dragging Reboot by his grip on her wrist, and hurried to McKay's side.

The bottom of the box had a tiny brass dot affixed. Ronon picked off the stud with his fingernail and held it up for all to see. "Colonel?"

"Be down!" Reboot shouted at his face.

Ronon grunted pain. Teeth clamped. Eyes squinted shut, he clutched the back of his neck. His legs buckled underneath him as if he'd been shot. The big guy fell back semi-unconscious against the Jumper's bulkhead.

At the same time, Reboot back-handed a punch to the container, implanting another brass stud. With the other arm, she punched McKay under the breastbone and shoved him aside.

Before Ronon could recover, and before Teyla could get out from underneath McKay's sprawling limbs, Reboot slammed the container into the hatch. She smacked the red button to jettison the contents into space.

"Whoa, whoa!" Sheppard leaped out of his pilot's seat and had a 9-mm pistol aimed before he'd fully come to his feet.

The co-pilot slapped his palms to the Jumper's flight controls. Wide-eyed he stared ahead through the windshield.

Teyla got to her in a twirl and knocked Reboot in the head, the kidneys, and the knees. Reboot slammed to the deck face-down. Teyla straddled across her back and twisted Reboot's arm up painfully behind her shoulder blades.

Ronon still sagged against the bulkhead and looked a little woozy. Hand wobbling, he held forth his massive alien handgun. The barrel wagged.

"Don't shoot!" McKay cried out. Then he laughed as if he were the only one in the room to get the punch line of a joke. "No harm done. The plan worked. You see, Reboot, it wasn't even in that container. The real thing is still back in Atlantis in my lab. We tricked you!"

"Ass," Reboot grunted with her cheek pressed to the gray metal grill.

Ronon plucked a small silver plug from the back of his neck. A tiny trickle of blood ran down his thumb. "This… This is why you kissed me? To plant a paralyzer dart on me?"

"Yeah." Reboot spoke with effort as Teyla's knee pressed into her kidneys. "That, and I've had a mad secret crush on you since I was about nine."

The sarcastic lilt to her voice—familiar and yet different—chilled them all and spread a hush over the compartment. She sounded exactly like Sheppard, just then… but with a female tone.

"Shut up." Ronon's gun-holding arm sank to his side.

"Okay," said Sheppard staring down the barrel of his gun. "Here's how this is going to work. Teyla's going to get off of you…"

On cue, Teyla rose to her feet.

"…and you're not going to move. You're not going to mouth off any more smart-ass remarks. You're going to stay on your belly just like that until we get back to Atlantis. Get it?"

"Got it."

"Good."

Ronon took a few deep breaths and cleared his throat. "Her gloves are studded with transponder dots. I don't know why I didn't think of it. I've seen 'em before. Hell, I've used 'em before."

"It's okay," Sheppard said with a grimace. "We got her to reveal her true colors, and that's what this little joy ride was all about."

#

Once back in the City of Atlantis, they marched her downstairs to the brig. Ancient bars slammed shut and encaged her in a nine-by-nine gray cell. Reboot slipped the straps and buckles off her chest and legs. A faded dark stain on the floor marked the spot where, the year before, Sheppard had pumped enough bullets into a wraith prisoner to turn its head to pudding. Even bleach couldn't get it clean. Reboot gave a thoughtful look to the bluish watercolor smear, but kept her expression under control. If she felt mortal fear at her confinement, nothing showed on that clear smooth face.

She took a proud, defiant pose in the center of the room. "Do I get a spanking, daddy?"

"Don't call me that." Sheppard cradled his P-90 as he got up close to the horizontal bars. "What I want to know is why you're trying to steal that damned box?"

"I told you."

"Bullshit. McKay's right. You're holding out."

Reboot shrugged. "Whatever."

Gray wheels squeaked over the gray floor. McKay walked alongside the cart that Doctor Zelenka and two others in white labcoats pushed from behind. Zelenka kept his head down and muttered in Czech but occasionally some English phrases popped out. "This is wrong, this is wrong," before he sank back into his pattering of Slavic syllables.

Reboot slouched against the far wall. Her hands hung in the pockets of her gray flight suit. Her head drooped down.

"Oh this is just brilliant," McKay said. "You're really outshining yourself here, Colonel. What if this really is a dangerous weapon? What if she's been lying to us all along just to maneuver herself into this very position: to be locked in a cell with this box in her hot little hands."

"Shut up."

"No! Because you're out of line, Sheppard. You don't have any clue about what this thing is or what it can do, any more than I do. Have you given this any thought at all, or are you so full of hubris—"

"I said, shut up!" Sheppard twisted about and glared into McKay's face.

"Fine, go ahead and yell at me all you want. When this thing implodes, or explodes, or whatever it does, don't come crying to me because I'll be standing…" McKay stepped back from the cart. "….right over here, ready to say 'I told you so.' So, go on. Do it your way."

Sheppard nodded to the gun-toting lieutenant who, at the silent order, slid open the barred door.

Zalenka let go of the cart's handlebar and also stepped back. "I won't… I won't be any part of this."

"What?"

"It is mistreatment of a prisoner. I won't." Zalenka, shaking his head, wiped his glasses and walked away.

Reboot raised her face. "Does Elizabeth know?"

Sheppard himself wheeled the cart inside the bars of the cell's cage, let go, and withdrew. "If I were you, I wouldn't worry about what Elizabeth knows or doesn't know. We're here to have a conversation about what _you_ know."

Sheppard closed the bars. He slid the shoulder strap of his P-90 around and brought the full length of the barrel to bear on her.

"Are you going to shoot me, daddy?"

"I said, don't call me that."

"Daddy," Reboot taunted. "Daddy. Daddy. Daddy."

Silence fell over the room. The scientists stared at Sheppard, and he stared only at her. The colonel's finger poised near the trigger of his gun.

"Open the goddamned box," Sheppard told her.

Reboot pushed herself off from the wall. She strolled quietly, her thick-soled boots as soundless as stockinged feet. At the cart she leaned her hips against the handlebar. "I wasn't trying to steal it, you know. The tracking dot was just so I could make sure. I had this hunch—this feeling—that McKay wouldn't let it go so easily. He almost never does what you tell him, and his curiosity overrides his judgment most of the time."

"Yeah," Sheppard agreed.

"Were you counting on that—my knowledge of your personalities—or did your trick work out by sheer luck?"

"Does it matter? You took the bait."

"Yep, you got me," she said. "How easy it would be to accuse me of being a spy for the Genii, the Ori, the Goa'uld, or even the Renfields. You could lock me up and write me off. Right now, you could be upstairs drinking Athosian lager and watching that scratched-up video of SuperBowl Seventeen for the thousandth time. But you can't… You can't let go of the curiosity."

Reboot slowly picked her quiet steps around the perimeter of the cart, always keeping her eyes fixated on the black box.

"Do you even know how to open it?" Sheppard asked.

"Yes."

"Then, do it."

Reboot folded her arms. "It's not too late to stop," she said. "Take me at my word. You don't even have to believe that I'm from the future or that I'm your daughter. Just accept this one fact: the box is dangerous. Destroy it, for real this time. Don't ask any more questions because you might not like the answers."

"I'm going to count down from five."

Reboot let her arms hang loose.

"Four… Three…"

McKay rushed forward and grabbed the bars. "Then what are you going to do? Shoot her?"

"Two… One…"

After a pause, Sheppard turned on his heel. "Ronon? Could you come over here?"

"Sure." Ronon sauntered out from the shadowy corner and took a stand at the colonel's side.

"You have any problems with what I'm thinking?" Sheppard asked.

"Not at all, colonel." Ronon slid a broad knife from among the several sheathed in his boot. "I _really_ don't like people poking gadgets under my skin."

Sheppard, still staring grimly at the woman in the cell, spoke sideways to the scientists. "You guys are gonna want to get out of here."

"Oh, this is great. So you're going to, what, have him torture her? Peel off her fingernails? Slice off her toes? Have you completely lost your mind? It's just a damned box, for God's sake! It's not even Ancient technology. It's not worth it, John. It's not worth it." McKay by now was trembling from head to toe, and his clear square face gleamed in the light of the overhead bar.

"Get out of here, Rodney," Sheppard said. "I won't tell you again."

Reboot raised her arms. "Stop! God, I can't stand hearing you two argue."

Everyone turned to stare at her. Zalenka, in his soft Czech accent, spoke first, "You don't have to do this. We won't let him hurt you."

Reboot smiled with her chin quivering. "I was just about to say the same thing. I can take whatever the Runner could do to me, and I have no doubt he could do quite a bit, but I can't bear the thought of…." Her voice faded mid-word as she turned aside.

"The thought of what?" Ronon asked grimly. "Upsetting the scientists?"

"Shh," Sheppard hissed. Never blinking, hardly breathing, he watched for what she would do next.

She bent squarely from the hips to lean down over the box's lid. Lips opened wide. Her tongue darted forth and licked the lid.

"Ugh," McKay exclaimed. "Okay, that's one thing I didn't try."

The box shimmered like asphalt in a desert. Then the lid cracked on square geometric lines. Tiles parted. Bits of the lid peeled away from each other. At the center radiated a neon pink glow.

Reboot brought herself up straight. "For future reference, tears, spit, blood, or any bodily fluid will do. It responds to DNA as long as it's human or wraith."

McKay, Zelenka, and the other two scientists plucked out hand-held meters and gadgets. One of them even had an old-fashioned Geiger counter that click-clicked in a slow, comforting tempo.

"Nothing," said McKay. "I'm not getting any energy readings at all, but obviously something's happening."

"It's dormant," Reboot told him while staring full-face into the pink neon glow. "Everyone got their cameras ready? You'll want to watch what happens when I touch it."

Sheppard brought up his rifle to bear at her head. "Go ahead."

Reboot raised her right hand and made the Sign of the Cross on herself by touching her forehead, breastbone, right shoulder, and left shoulder. "Here goes." With right arm still crossed over her breastline, she laid her left hand on the pink neon center.

A glow banged out of the box. Pressure squeezed Sheppard's inner ear. A whine like a nosedive at 4Gs gripped him in the head. "Ah," he gasped, gritting his teeth and squinting against the air pressure.

Reboot stood stiff showered in pink hail lights. Her mouth was open—she was screaming but Sheppard couldn't hear her. The crackling lights blanketed her whole body, held her tight for nearly a full minute, and then flowed off her.

When the light had finished with her, Reboot convulsed on her feet. She twirled on her heels and collapsed to the floor.

The lid of the black box clopped shut.

McKay rushed at the cell's door before anybody could tell him not to. He yanked aside the bars. "If she's dead…"

"Rodney! Get back here!"

McKay knelt at her shoulder to touch her neck. "All right, she's got a pulse."

Sheppard stomped into the cell, too. "Rodney, get behind me. You don't know what that thing's done to her."

"Oh, what?" McKay said. "Do you think she's going to roll over and have a zombie face?"

"It occurred to me. Evil Dead… Night of the Living Dead… Resident Evil…"

"Oh, right, silly me! Here I have wasted all those years in accredited universities earning my doctorate degrees in quantum physics, mathematics, and nano-electronics, when I could have been getting my education at the Cineplex!"

Reboot groaned in a lower tone than she had used before.

McKay jumped back. "Did she just growl?"

Sheppard shrugged. "Could be."

Ronon grasped one of the cell's bars and casually leaned closer. "You know, Sheppard, something about this is kind of familiar…. I'm trying to remember…."

Reboot moaned again and halfway sat up to the elbows.

"How do you feel?" Sheppard asked.

Reboot continued to press up from the floor. "Crap, that hurt like hell." The voice, though definitely hers, was deeper and had the unmistakable huskiness of a male.

"Oh my god," McKay said.

Sheppard knew, too. He knew before Reboot had fully regained standing position. He knew before his eyes took in the staggering sight of the newly-sprouted Adam's apple, the broadened shoulders, the flattened chest, and the thickness at the front of the pants.

Reboot—a man, now—met Sheppard's stare head-on. "Hey, I thought I'd get taller."

"Of course!" McKay exclaimed. "It all makes sense, now."

"It does?" Sheppard asked.

"Of course, it can be used for salvation or destruction. Imagine a society damaged by the wraith, where perhaps there are too many of one sex and not enough of the other. Do a little alteration of gender, and you have a well-balanced gene pool to continue breeding and regenerate the population." McKay paused to stare at the black box. "On the other hand, imagine transforming everyone in a society to a single gender so that they're incapable of breeding the next generation. You could exterminate an entire race, an entire world, without every firing a shot. It's brilliant. It's ingenious. It's… it's hideous."

"It's wraith technology," Reboot said, and paused to clear his throat. "It's how drones turn into queens."

"Just like little honeybees," Sheppard added. He tilted his head to scan his stare up and down Reboot's lean, athletic and very male frame.

Ronon Dex chuckled deeply in tones muted by the small cramped room. "Hey, now I remember! Never knew what it was called. Always thought it was a myth."

"It's no myth." Reboot ran both hands over his flat chest. "Damn, this feels so strange. I feel off-balanced."

Sheppard kept eyeing the newly-made man. The face still resembled his cousin Susan but on steroids. "What I don't get is why you wouldn't just tell us what this thing does? It's certainly not the weirdest thing we've seen."

"Screw off, daddy." Reboot folded his arms. "I've showed you what it does. That's as far as I go. Are you going to melt it down, now?"

Sheppard coughed a grunt. "That's it, kiddo. You're grounded."

Reboot stayed standing in the center of the cell, arms folded, and watched them all leave. McKay wheeled the cart with box back out of the cell. Sheppard, covered by a lieutenant standing with a machine gun, exited last.

#

Teyla re-entered the brig a half hour later. She ventured cautiously towards the bars of the cell door.

Reboot stood up at her approach. Indeed, the woman had turned into a man. Although the face had not changed much, a certain indefinable hardness had carved an edge on the features. The gray flight suit crinkled at the front where breasts had once filled it out, and the sleeves pulled a little tighter around the biceps.

Before Teyla could say anything, Reboot opened his mouth wide and sang _Ah-ah-ah_. A wordless song that Teyla knew well came roaring out of the man's throat. _Ah-ah-ah_, Teyla joined in harmony at the higher octave. Together they sang the melody of a song whose words were long forgotten. They sang the mourning hymn of an Emmagan the Protector and the dirge of loss. At the final tone—_ah_—their mutual voices faded into one breath.

Teyla paused to savor the silence and the rush of emotion that the refrain stirred within her. Doubts drained away. As surely as, in her gut, she would feel the approach of a wraith, Teyla knew and believed that Reboot was everything she-and-he had claimed.

"I am listening," Teyla said.

"Of all the reason I have for doing this crazy thing, and for all the lives I am trying to save, it's what happened to you that ultimately motivated me to bend the universe. When I buried you, I swore—" Reboot's voice broke with emotion, and he had to stop.

Teyla tilted her head and held still to listen.

"What will happen to this city will take a toll on your spirit. You will be the sole survivor of your people and the first Emmagan to fail her duty. You will feel ashamed for fleeing the destruction of Atlantis when you might have stayed to fight. Even if it was to save me—the child of a man you admire—the saving of one innocent life never could measure up to the hundreds who died."

Teyla swallowed hard, but kept listening, drinking in the words like a bitter medicine.

"You will be forced to dwell in the den of your mortal enemies on the wraith home world itself. You will struggle each hour of each day, waking or sleeping, to block out the telepathic drift of wraith minds into yours."

Teyla's eyelids drooped as she imagined being in such a place. Her short stints of captivity on wraith hive ships had been painful enough; she wondered, could she ever survive years of exile on the wraith home world?

"You will learn the one skill which, until then, would have been inconceivable. You will deceive others."

Teyla shook her head at hearing this. "The Genii are deceivers, not me."

"You'll learn. You'll have to! You will pass unharmed among the Renfields who live in shame under the shadow. You will learn to tell lies as easily as you tell the sacred legends of your people. You will teach me to lie to survive, until…"

Reboot choked up again. He put a fist to his face and coughed to clear his throat.

Teyla approached closer and draped her fingers between the gaps in the bars. "Go on."

"You will become as the tragic hero Pahndreya in the legend… when the walls fell…"

Teyla shuddered. "You are saying I will take my own life? By my own hand?"

"Yes."

"I cannot believe it. I would never do such a thing, no matter how horrible or painful my circumstances may be. To die in such a way is the ultimate, unspeakable taboo among my people."

"I know." His eyes, greenish-gray and glittering, fixed a piercing stare on her that so strongly resembled Sheppard's. His voice—now male—had the same tone as the colonel's voice. "That _you_ of all people would come to that decision…"

Teyla whirled in place to face the guard. The lieutenant stood there watching all this with an impassive face, his black fatigues and bulletproof vest blending in with the shadows of the corner.

"Open the cage," Teyla said.

"Sorry, ma'am. I can't do that without orders from the colonel."

Backing off, Teyla promised, "I will go talk to Elizabeth. She will listen to me."

"Yeah," Reboot wiped fronds of auburn hair away from his face. He retreated further into the cage with his shoulders slouched in hopelessness. "Good luck with that."

On the way out, Teyla bumped Doctor Beckett coming in.

"Excuse me!" the doctor exclaimed.

Teyla brushed by him and hurried along her way.

#

Dr. Weir fixed her sights on the black box resting on the conference table. So plain, so small, so simple… and yet so powerful. She listened to the men give their reports one at a time, as if hearing their chorus of voices in a dream. Once they had told her the premise of what had happened to Reboot, her mind's thoughts soared into a garden of possibilities. Men made into women. Women made into men. Worlds saved. Worlds destroyed.

"…but she's still holding something back, damnit!" Sheppard said. His outburst snapped Weir from her musings, and she raised her gaze to look at him. "I mean, he."

"Perhaps the answer is simple," Weir suggested. "Perhaps Reboot is simply an opportunist looking to steal this object and sell it to the highest bidder. Do we have any concrete evidence that she… I mean, he is from the future?"

"Other than the blood test, no," said McKay. "We still haven't been able to open the cockpit on the wraith dart. I only had a glimpse of cables and keyboards grafted onto the wraith console, so I can't tell you for sure whether she's using our technology or something else."

Teyla burst into the conference room, breathless from running all the way. "Doctor Weir, I must speak with you!"

"You're welcome to join us. I assume, from your expression, you've heard about what this box's function is."

Teyla rooted her palm to the table and stood leaning over Sheppard. "Colonel, he is absolutely your child from a future time."

"Okay."

"I have just visited him, and I am convinced that everything he has said is true! We must listen to him and destroy this box to prevent the wraith from destroying Atlantis."

"Sit down." Sheppard scooted out a chair for her. "Please?"

Doctor Weir smiled invitingly. "Please, Teyla, we're having the discussion right now. Our hesitation comes from the simple fact that she… he lied to us. Some very key information was withheld, don't you think? It makes us wonder what else Reboot isn't telling us."

Teyla settled into the chair. "Perhaps he did not tell you certain things for good reasons."

"Ah-ah," Sheppard said. "Not good enough."

Weir tapped her earpiece. "Carson?"

"I've finished my exam, Elizabeth," his brogue said in her ear. "I'm on my way."

Sheppard raked a hand through his dark, tousled hair. "The real question is, can we be sure if he's working alone? Are there partners out there in orbit waiting to betray us to the wraith?"

"You mean," said Weir. "Is he one of these 'Renfields' that he's mentioned before?"

"I can't believe that," Teyla said.

"He has made no threats or demands," McKay reminded him. "No transmissions or homing beacons of any kind."

"Just in case," Weir said. "Keep an eye on him. We can't rule out the possibility of telepathic communication or transmissions that are outside the range of our sensors."

"Doin' it," Sheppard told her.

The door swished open for Doctor Beckett. He carried a shoulder pouch and a laptop computer. "He's in perfect health," the doctor said while walking to his chair. "Same as before, just with a Y chromosome added and a shift in hormone levels. It's fascinating when you think about it, although not as far-fetched as ye'all are thinking. Actually there's very little difference between men and women. It wouldn't be hard at all. No, not hard at all."

Weir leaned her hands on the table. "Carson, about the DNA tests. Could they be faked?"

"Definitely not."

"Are you sure? Perhaps we should run other tests."

"Elizabeth, trust me. Reboot is Colonel Sheppard's biological child."

Sheppard asked, "You said that before, but you wouldn't tell us who the mother is. After all that's happened, I think we need to know."

Beckett wrinkled his brows in worry. "Well, until ten minutes ago, I woulda been assuming that some kind of cloning technology was used, a genetic manipulation or some sort of procedure."

"Yeah," Sheppard prompted. "But?"

"Well, if Reboot's story is true and he is from the future, then the only explanation is that somehow the black box will change the gender of someone here in Atlantis and made it possible for someone who is currently a man to become a woman… a mother."

Sheppard's expression soured. "You mean, Reboot's biological mother is not one of the women here? It's one of the guys?"

Beckett nodded. "Exactly. You see now my hesitation. This news could be quite distressing to the person involved."

"It takes kinky to a whole new level," Sheppard said quietly.

"Oh god, oh god," McKay groaned. "It's me, isn't it? It's always me."

Beckett smiled. "It's not you, Rodney."

"What?" McKay swiveled in his chair, coming to bear upon the colonel. "Oh, so I'm not good enough for you?"

"Don't go there," Sheppard growled.

Weir held out her hands to the air. "It doesn't matter! It hasn't happened yet, if it ever will. I, for one, am not entirely convinced that this isn't some elaborate ruse to steal this object. I respect your opinion, Carson, but I can't rule out the possibility that blood tests can be faked to lend credibility to a well-researched and smoothly crafted alibi. Like you said, cloning technology is a possibility. Whatever Reboot's motives may be, the question at hand is really this: what should we do with this box?"

Silent faces all turned to look at the inert black cube on the table.

#

Doctor Zelenka entered the brig. He cautiously approached the horizontal bars of the cell. He glanced briefly to the armed lieutenant standing on guard, and then gave his full attention to Reboot. The man reclined on a fold-out Army cot. At least they had provided that much. His slender legs propped up against the wall.

"How is he?" the doctor asked.

"Hasn't moved in two hours."

"I see. I see." Zelenka put a hand into the pocket of his unzipped jacket. "I'm here to, uh, make some observations for the…"

Zelenka pulled out his hand which gripped something like a pen flashlight. A blue laser flashed from the tip.

When the beam hit the lieutenant's eyes, his face went blank, and he collapsed to a heap on the floor. The M-16 clattered heavily. Zelenka kicked the weapon aside.

Reboot sat up. "What the hell are you doing?"

Zelenka unlocked the cell's door and slid the bars aside. "Come on, we don't have much time. I've put the security camera on a feedback loop, but I don't know how long it will play before we're discovered."

"You can't be serious. You're breaking me out?"

The scientist waved his hand. "Come on, come on!"

"Boy, are you gonna be in trouble." Reboot sprang from the cot. Then he laughed and slapped his arms around Zelenka for a quick hug. "Thanks!"

#

Zelenka led the way to the nearest transport chamber. Bronze doors closed them in like an elevator. Reboot stood by and watched the doctor tap a spot on the schematic displayed on the wall. A faint hum vibrated the floor.

"I'd almost forgot about these things," Reboot said softly. "When I was a kid, I used to play hide-and-seek with Ronon the Runner. Some of the hidden, haunted places I discovered in this big, empty city would curl your hair…" Reboot glanced to Zelenka's receding hairline and wavy locks. "Well, you know what I mean."

"I would like to hear more about that, later," the scientist said. "First, we must get you somewhere safe."

"'Somewhere safe?' I don't even know what that means."

The chamber's doors swished open.

They stepped outside to a sunlit, chrome-plated wharf with a glass railing and silvery crystal piers. Ocean waves lapped at the 10,000-year-old structures. Reboot held to the sloping rail and savored the odors of a salty breeze.

"Wonderful," he said, his eyes half closed. "You learn to appreciate a real atmosphere when you've spent enough time locked in the cockpit of a spaceship. Don't ever take this for granted."

"I don't," said Zelenka. "An atmosphere completely free of greenhouse gases and toxic pollution? Every day… every day, I count myself lucky to be here."

Zelenka tapped Reboot's elbow and led him to a boxy structure at the base of the wharf, an open shed that for all purposes resembled a harbor master's gatehouse. "You'll be safe here. I've already packed some canned food, blankets and five liters of drinking water. Stay low for a couple of days, and I'll try to figure out a way to get your ship out here."

Reboot held to the open doorway. "They'll track me down in two minutes with a life signs scanner."

The doctor brought a bracelet from his other pocket that, studded with glowing crystals, sparkled of its own power. "No, they won't. This will shield you from the scanners if you keep this at all times within one meter of yourself."

Reboot smiled admiringly. "Nice."

#

"What were you thinking!" Weir shouted. She paced back and forth behind her glossy desk, while Zelenka squirmed sitting in the chair. "Colonel Sheppard is going through the roof right now, and for once, I can't say I blame him."

"I'm sorry," Zelenka said. "When I was a child, in my home country, I saw the communists do things… You can't understand."

Weir deflated into her chair. "Radek, you could've come to talk to me, if you were feeling this way. Even if you didn't agree with the treatment of the prisoner, you had no right to…"

"I'm sorry. I know."

"Do you? Do you really understand what you've done? The danger you've put us in? We don't know if she… he can be trusted. We don't have any proof that he is who he says he is, or that he really is from the future. For all you know, he's a spy for the Genii or the wraith collaborators, and you've just set him loose in the city!"

Zelenka looked down at his hands clasped in his lap.

"We've got security teams scouring the city, and you'd better hope they find him and subdue him without incident. Doctor, if Reboot fights back… If he injures anyone else…"

"I know. It's my responsibility."

#

Six hours later, Reboot still had not been found. Teams on foot scoured the dark corridors of the city, and Jumpers cruised overhead laying out scanning beams, all to no avail. Nothing showed on the life-signs detectors. No one appeared in sight. The sun set over the ocean's waters, and the sky turned to twilight.

"It's too far to swim to shore," Sheppard grumbled right after he broadcast the order to call off the search.

He piloted his Jumper through the roof of the flight hangar. The pinwheel sections of the roof swirled shut above his head. He descended straight down, as slowly as a pearl sinking into a jug of shampoo, and brought the small craft gently to rest on the deck.

Rubbing his eyes, he whispered, "Damnit."

Lights powered down and went dark. The engine's music hummed lower tones and then fell silent.

Sheppard swiveled out of his pilot's seat and walked to the rear of the craft to exit. He tapped his earpiece and called, "Elizabeth? I can be in the briefing room in a few minutes. You want to meet me there, and we'll figure out our next step?"

"I'll be there," she answered.

Sheppard headed for the outer door. _Damnit, damnit, damnit_, he thought with every plodding step.

Once outside in the corridor, someone ran up to him from the opposite direction. McKay, his pale face drawn and earnest, swiveled to match pace with the colonel.

"You're not going to want to hear this," McKay began.

"Probably not."

"The box… It's gone."

Sheppard gasped, "What?" He stomped to a halt.

"Three marines are unconscious. The security camera's been erased. Nobody saw anything. It's just gone."

"Goddamnit! Where's Zelenka?"

"It wasn't him." When Sheppard started off, McKay bolted forward to keep up with him. "Radek was in Elizabeth's office for the past half hour, and then he went directly to the mess hall for coffee and supper with me."

Sheppard's jaw set into a hard frown. "Reboot."

"That would be my guess."

"It's what he was after all along," Sheppard said. "The box… The damned box."

"Yes, be that as it may, Reboot still has to find a way to transport out of Atlantis. So far, he's managed to avoid our life-signs sensors, but he won't be able to use the Stargate or steal one of the Jumpers without—"

Static clicked in Sheppard's earpiece. A voice crackled, "Daddy?"

Again, Sheppard halted in mid-step. "Reboot?"

"Is that him?" McKay whispered. Sheppard waved him off.

"Look," said Reboot's low-toned voice. "I'm a little short on time, so I'll get to the point. I need you to reopen the flight doors on the hangar deck."

Sheppard swiveled in place to face back the way he had come. "Oh, so you can sail away in your wraith dart with the damned box?"

"Basically, yeah."

"Come on, you've gotta make me a better deal." Sheppard gripped the wire that supported the mouthpiece. His other hand gestured to McKay.

"What? What?" the doctor asked. Then, catching the harsh glint in Sheppard's eyes, he nodded understanding. McKay hurried off a couple of yards and tapped his own earpiece. "Hey! Elizabeth? I need a squad of marines up on the hangar deck, right away. Reboot's trying to take off. John's stalling him…"

"How about you give up the box?" Sheppard asked thin air. "But we let you go, no harm, no foul."

Reboot said, "The nearest squad of marines that I'm tracking can probably run upstairs in about three minutes. You agree with that estimate, colonel?"

"Maybe," Sheppard said. "Or, maybe I have a squad of marines standing right here with me. That's up to you to wonder."

"I don't wonder. I'm doing a full-city life-sign scan every eight seconds. A squad of marines is exactly four hundred ninety seven meters away, nine floors down, and accounting for the flights of stairs and twists-and-turns, I'm figuring two minutes and forty-five seconds. That's how much time you have, daddy. Open the flight doors."

"Wait."

"No more waiting. I know you've already called for backup; I'm monitoring the communications, too. I know the trigger-boys are already on their way. I'm setting the wraith dart to self-destruct."

"You're bluffing."

"Well, you'll find out. You either let me sail out of here with the box, or in two-and-a-half minutes this whole tower goes ka-blammo. Tick tock, daddy."

"Damnit!"

Sheppard broke into a run back for the doors of the hangar bay. Burnished auburn panels swished aside for his approach; did they obediently open for just anyone, he thought. _Later on, have to fix that, install locks or something_.

The wraith dart hovered about four feet off the deck. Its charcoal hull glimmered nearly invisible in the minimal illumination. Indigo lights and a neon blue pilot's bubble lit up the outline of the hideous craft, like some twisted Christmas tree ornament that had gone through a fire.

"Two minutes."

"You're not going to blow yourself up!" Sheppard shouted at the humming, hovering craft. "You've come too far and gone through too much to steal that damned box."

"Whether you believe me or not, the truth is what I've always told you: I came back through time to make sure I was never born. I'll do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. Granted, things didn't follow the outline. Do they ever? But the end result is the same."

Sheppard drew out his .9-mm pistol and aimed at the pilot's canopy. "Shut it down."

"Or, what?"

"You are _not_ getting out of here."

The whine of the hovering craft grew louder and more piercing. The engines were definitely building up an overload. Notes reached the grating pitch of fingernails on a blackboard.

Sheppard gritted his teeth and fired the pistol, popping off the whole magazine in rapid bursts. Shells sprinkled around his feet. Bullets bounced off the dart's canopy.

"One minute and counting down. Open up or evacuate through the nearest transport chamber."

Sheppard reloaded the pistol's clip. "All right, all right! You win. I'll open it. Just gimme a sec."

He walked across the hangar deck and right past the hovering dart. As he passed, he pounded his fist against the hull of the ship.

At the same time, with his fist he planted a magnetic-backed grenade. "I'll track you down to the ends of the universe!"

A flick of the thumb, and he pulled the pin. They had 15 seconds.

Sheppard hurried to the crystal panel on the wall. He only had to touch it with the palm of his hand and think of the flight doors opening. The Ancient machinery intuited his intentions and obeyed.

"Thanks," said Reboot's voice.

Moonlight flooded in, dispelled the shadows, and turned the contours of the black craft to a dull silver. For a moment, even the twisted engineering designs of life-sucking monsters seemed almost beautiful. Sheppard shuddered at the thought; it had no damned right to be beautiful.

"Go on, get the hell out of here." _Go, go, go_, he urged in his thoughts. _Eight… Seven… Six…_

The wraith dart floated upwards, wobbled on its axis, and turned to point nose-first straight at the sky. A burst of white from its rear jets sent it shooting for the gray moonlit clouds.

McKay entered the hangar deck and stood at Sheppard's side. Together both men gazed up at the open skylight and beyond the frame, to the tiny black speck growing smaller to a flake of ash.

"You let him go?" McKay asked.

Sheppard shook his head. "Nope."

"But—"

Fireworks colors spread a glittering flower between the white clouds. "Oh my god!" McKay exclaimed. Red, green and gold fragments of the wraith dart in flames sprinkled earthward. A few moments later, a boom rumbled down from the darkening sky.

#

Sheppard leaned elbows on the railing. Sea breezes stirred his unbrushed dark hair. He stared over the wide expanse of mild ocean. _It'll be dawn in two hours. A bright new day_.

The doors swished open. Firm, measured bootfalls approached from behind. Sheppard did not turn around; he knew, by the tempo of those footsteps, that Elizabeth Weir had come to take her place at the balcony overlooking the long-deserted harbors of Atlantis.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked.

"How'd you guess?"

"So, I've read your report," she said. "I won't try to second-guess your actions, but I can't help wishing there was some other way this thing could've been resolved."

"Yep. Me too."

"It's like she… he wanted to die. I can't imagine being that hopeless or desperate."

"Yeah."

Weir mirrored his pose: elbows on the railing, hands clasped in mid-air, and she half-closed her eyes while inhaling the clear night breeze.

She said, "I still can't bring myself to believe that she really was from the future, either. It was such an outrageous story! I'm convinced she made it up to confuse us and distract us from her real purpose."

"That damned box," Sheppard muttered.

"Yes. Well, it's destroyed now." Weir put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't feel too bad. She didn't give you much choice."

"Thanks, Elizabeth, for understanding. Frankly, I thought you'd have the opposite reaction."

"Maybe a year ago, I would have," Weir said. "I feel myself changing, John. I'm getting more and more used to the violence that so shocked me at first. I find myself advocating, and at times, applauding the things you do. Before coming to Atlantis, such thoughts would have been inconceivable."

"Yeah, I must say, you're coming around."

"Not in a good way," she said. "The things I've seen and learned since coming here are hardening me, John, and I'm not sure I like it."

"Change is good. Just, uh, don't let yourself get too hardened or you'll wind up like me."

"What do you mean?" Weir asked with a slight smile. "You're not so—"

"I strapped a grenade to my own child's ship and I stood there and watched it blow up. All the while I told myself I did the right thing, that I had no choice."

Weir straightened up. "You believed her about being from the future?"

"Yeah I did. I just had a gut feeling even before the results of the first blood test. Something about her eyes. I just looked into her eyes, and I _knew_."

"You believed her, and you still—?"

"Yeah... I still."

#

Late at night, Doctor Zelenka sat alone in the control room. He sat alone at the golden crystal glowing panel that bore the alien characters for dialing the Stargate. He sat alone in the vast half-lit chamber, at home in the shadows, gazing at but not really seeing the laptop computer's LCD screen and the lines of program code scrolling by. He was running a rebuild of the diagnostic software, version six-point-seven, and by rights he could have left it alone overnight to run the build by itself. But he stayed to watch the millions of lines of encryption scroll by on the little laptop's screen. He stayed because he knew, on this night, sleep would not come.

Images of memories scrolled through his mind as swiftly as the lines of code on the latptop: tanks, guns, soldiers, bombs, broken glass in the streets of Prague. His eyes hardened from within. When, he thought, was the last time he had wept? He had been dry-eyed at his parents' funerals—both of them—and he had weathered the life-threatening adventures since coming on the Atlantis expedition without hardly a blink. Even the stunning beauty of the ancient city rising from the depths of the ocean, although inspiring, did not squeeze out a single tear.

Now, tonight, for the first time in years, Zelenka wished he could cry. Someone had to cry for the woman-turned-man who had exploded into cinders that evening. If no one cried, and no one in Atlantis seemed to care, then did a human's death really matter? And, if one death did not matter, then why fight the wraith at all?

"Hello," said Teyla.

Zelenka jumped. His arm flinched. His PDA and a handful of mechanical pencils skittered across the console.

"Sorry," she said. "I did not mean to startle you."

"Oh, it's quite all right. It's all right." His hands fumbled to scoop together his things. "Please, sit down. What are you doing up so late?"

Teyla gracefully sank into a seat next to him. She wore nightclothes of soft-fiber fleece sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt that draped over her bosom in all the right creases. Strangely, the clothes covered her entirely except for her hands and face, but Zelenka blushed at the nearness of her.

"It was very bold, what you did," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Helping Reboot to escape the cell… Trying to hide him out in the deserted areas of the city…" Teyla rested a hand across his wrist. "Radek, please tell me what is troubling you."

He swallowed, hard; she had never called him by his first name before. "Thank you, Teyla. I hope that, out of everybody here, maybe you can understand."

She smiled, "I'll try."

Zelenka took a deep breath and caught a scent of her like cinnamon candles. "Well, uh, when I was a child, the Soviets invaded my country. They overturned the president and established a hard-line communist government. They aren't as literally monstrous as the wraith, but they came close."

"I see," said Teyla gently. "So, you witnessed violence at a young age. This must all be very hard for you."

Zelenka shook his head and his wire glasses slipped down his nose a bit. He took off the glasses, wiped the foggy lenses, and put them back on. "A lot of other people here in Atlantis have seen violence. You, most of all."

Teyla inclined her head. "Yes."

"That's not exactly what I'm trying to tell you," he said. "The real horror came afterwards, during the next twenty years of Soviet occupation before the Berlin wall came down. I saw changes in my neighbors, friends, and family. I saw people who turned from being trusted one day to being a traitor the next. Innocent people went into the Gulag and didn't come out. Criminals ran the black market who intimidated, betrayed, and murdered their neighbors boldly walked free."

"I must say," Teyla began. "Before your people came to Atlantis, whenever I imagined a world untouched by the wraith—if I could imagine it at all—I thought such a world would be a paradise."

"Parts of it can be," Zelenka said. "But parts of it are just terrible. What I've seen today reminds me of those times when I lived under the communists."

"I am sorry for what you have suffered, but I cannot believe these situations are the same."

Zelenka insisted, "We took a woman who had never fired a shot at us, and we locked her up, and we forced that machine on her."

"Radek, please, try to look at this situation with an unbiased eye. She gave us every reason to be suspicious. In the end, she forced Colonel Sheppard's hand. Perhaps, in her despair, she even wanted it that way… to end her life, but not by her own hand."

"Did she? There's always a choice, Teyla. There's always a choice to _not_ kill, and Colonel Sheppard didn't make that choice today."

"Yes," Teyla insisted, drawing out the syllable almost like a song. "Compassion is a wonderful thing; do not ever lose it. On the other hand, we cannot leave ourselves open to attack by Genii spies or the minions of the wraith."

"Renfields, she called them. By the way, if she were a spy for the Genii, how would she know a character from Bram Stoker's book?"

Teyla shook her head. "I do not know."

"I believed her," Zelenka said. "I believe she really did come from the future. Given what she was flying, and how she got here through the Stargate, it's possible. I believe we've just blown up one of our own."

"So did I."

"Thank you for your kindness, Teyla, but it's something that I won't be getting over anytime soon. I'll just have to learn to live with it."

"How sweet," said a light-toned male voice from behind.

_Reboot_.

Zelenka swiveled in his chair. Teyla braced her feet and halfway rose.

"Ah-ah," scolded Reboot who held a semi-automatic pistol aimed at their faces. "No sudden moves."

Teyla sank back to the chair. "You were never in the wraith dart at all."

"Remote control is a wonderful thing, isn't it, Doc?" Reboot grinned with a jaw darkened by unshaved stubble. He wore a black crew shirt and Air Force fatigues identical to Sheppard's with an American flag patch on the sleeve. An oval canteen and a mag flashlight hung by straps off one shoulder.

Zelenka stood up defiantly. Though not a large man, he took a stand in between Reboot and the dialing device. "You're not going to shoot me."

"Correction. I'm not going to kill you. But if you screw with me, I will certainly shoot you in the leg. You too, Tey."

Teyla grasped the doctor's arm at just above the elbow. She had to give a firm tug to get his feet moving. Together they sidled away from the control console and sneaked nearer another bank of laptop screens.

"Ah-ah," Reboot scolded. He waved with the barrel of his automatic pistol. "Not that way. Too many buttons! Go to the stairs. Stand halfway down where I can see you."

"Put down the gun," Zelenka said. "You know I'll help you."

"I'm doing you a favor." Reboot spared his left hand to press the large, crystal wedges of the dialing device. One by one, those buttons that he touched glowed from deep within. "The colonel is already pretty pissed at you. You don't need to be in any more trouble."

Teyla asked, "You went through all this trouble to steal that box? At least tell us, for who—"

"I didn't steal the box."

The great ring of the Stargate flushed liquid blue in a plume that engulfed half the room. The swoosh withdrew and stabilized into a shimmering pool upright within the rim of the ring.

Reboot stepped away from the dialing console. He extended his free arm to show, again, that all he carried was the canteen and the flashlight. "See? Nothing in my pockets but batteries, waterproof matches, and oatmeal-flavored energy bars. I did what I came to do. The box really was in that ship when Daddy blew it up. With his help, I destroyed the damned thing."

"To save the future?" Teyla asked.

"Yeah, to save the future… your future. May you be blessed with long days and clear skies, Emmagan." He touched his own forehead then released his hand as if blowing a kiss.

Teyla nodded to accept the good-bye.

"And to you, doctor, farewell and _mějte se_."

Zelenka gasped. "You speak Czech?"

"Just a little, from listening to you." Reboot ducked down the grand glowing staircase.

His gun waved at them to come along, but guided them always out of arms' reach, never giving Teyla an opening to leap or kick. The woman helplessly had to just take the stairs as directed. Zelenka, with his arm behind Teyla's waist, maneuvered himself into the line of fire.

"When you're through that gate," Zelenka said. "I will do my best to delete your dialing coordinates from the log."

"Don't bother. McKay would probably manage a data recovery. As soon as I reach the other side, I'm going to 'gate' to somewhere else and then somewhere else after that."

All three of them reached the main floor. Reboot took sideways steps towards the gate. He kept his gaze always on the two of them, his gun always trained on their kneecaps, as he crept nearer to the shimmering blue glow.

"Or, who knows? Maybe now that I've changed my future, I won't materialize on the other side at all. Maybe I'll disintegrate into a scattered stream of photonic particles. Not a bad way to go."

Zelenka said, "There's a strong probability that you will remain fully intact. As you said, the quality of time is not necessarily linear."

At the threshold of the Stargate, Reboot paused. He reached into the collar of his black crew shirt and pulled up a necklace chain. Baubles and pendants dangled from various points around the chain like an oversized charm bracelet.

"Here," Reboot said while bending at the knees to lay the charm necklace on the floor. "I've carried this around since I was a child. You'll see that it explains a lot. I want you to have it."

Teyla and Zelenka traded a quick glance. She asked, "You wish for who to have—?"

"No one's having anything!" Sheppard stepped out of the shadows. He held a stout P-90 at Reboot's back.

A row of armed marines emerged from the shadows, beneath the stairs, behind the Stargate, around the columns that supported the mezzanine platform. Two dozen gun barrels leveled and came to bear on Reboot's standing form backlit by the blue shimmer of the gate.

Ronon stood among the marines. His beige rawhide jacket and barely-contained dreadlocks were a sharp contrast to the dark-colored fatigues and caps. His wide-barreled handgun aimed in line the others, and his eyes squinted over the weapon's sights.

"Put it down," Sheppard said. "Real slow like."

Reboot bent at the knees to carefully lay his gun on the floor. "Okay, how'd you get me?"

Sheppard said, "It occurred to me afterwards that you inherited my Ancient gene and could've opened the hangar doors yourself, that is, if you were in that hangar in the first place."

"Damn."

"And, I figured that you went to a hell of a lot of trouble coming back through time and all. You weren't going to let yourself get blown up that easily. Step away."

Reboot backed off a few paces. "You're not going to kill me."

"Naw." Sheppard advanced toward the spot on the floor where the gun lay. "How did you put it a second ago? I won't kill you, but I will certainly shoot you."

Reboot turned his head to scan over the line of armed marines, ending with Ronon who stood oddly with them and apart from them all at the same time.

"You never believed me, did you?" he asked.

"Actually, I've always believed you a hundred percent. Even before the DNA tests came back, I had a gut feeling. Never doubted you for a second. I just never trusted you."

"Huh." Reboot took those words like a punch. "You never did let me get away with anything. Somehow, you'd always know when I had candy wrappers in my pockets."

Sheppard bent over to retrieve Reboot's gun. In the same stroke, he picked up the charm necklace as well. "That's me, all right. Kids don't run wild on my watch."

"Well, there's the irony. I can warp the universe and travel tangibly through space and time, but to have your unconditional trust… I guess some things really _are_ impossible, daddy."

Sheppard looked at the charms dangling from the silver chain and his cocky self-sure expression flattened to neutral. Sheppard's blue eyes fixated on the baubles. One-handed, he fingered each item, turning the pendants and lockets and wedges against the glow of the Stargate.

Reboot folded his arms and watched Sheppard study the necklace. "I've carried that thing around my whole life so I would never forget any of you. But now that I've seen you all, I don't need it anymore." The rims of his eyes turned a reddish tinge. Moisture twinkled on his lashes.

A long moment passed where no one spoke. The liquid hum of the Stargate reverberated in the air. The clink-clink of jewelry jingled in Sheppard's hand.

The colonel lowered the barrel of his gun. He turned to the squad of marines. Stand down!" Sheppard ordered. "Let him go."

"Sir?" Ronon stepped out of the firing line, away from the marines, and his long rawhide coat swayed behind his legs. His gun arm stayed up pointed at Reboot's back.

"I said, let him go if he wants to."

Ronon glowered darkly but lowered his gun to point at the floor.

"Thanks, daddy." Reboot sniffed and hurriedly wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Then he smoothly stepped toward the threshold of the Stargate but paused before going through. "I guess you've figured out who my mother is?"

"Yeah."

"But it doesn't matter now. It never happened. It won't happen. The future will be different. The rest is up to you."

"Thanks." Sheppard nervously scrubbed the back of his own neck and gave a wry smile. "You know, you don't have to leave so soon."

"Yes, I do." Reboot clapped him across the shoulder. "I'm going to do what I'm best at: hide… lie… and blow things up."

"See ya on the other side someday," Sheppard said.

"Maybe."

Then Reboot dove into the shimmering pool of blue. A faint sound like a splash sucked him into the glow that rippled to receive him. The Stargate held its light for a second or two, then with a loud hiss, it went blank.

Zelenka strode across the room and came to Sheppard's side. "What is it?"

Teyla reached the colonel, one step behind the doctor. Her gentle hands pried the charm necklace from Sheppard's numb fingers. One by one, she held the baubles up to the ambient amber light.

A tarnished P-90 shell casing engraved with a date thirteen years in the future….A bronze sunburst pendant made in the style of Teyla's village artistry… Brown ceramic beads from the neckband that Ronon always wore… A chunk of green-backed computer circuit board charred at the edges… Military dog tags with John Sheppard's name, Air Force serial number, and still the rank of Major… Finally, a locket with an inscription of alphabet letters but not in English.

"I can't read this," Teyla said.

Zelenka took the locket onto his palm and read aloud a phrase in Czech. He paused and gulped with difficulty. "It says, 'To my beloved daughter, Mary Verushka, my miracle.' Oh my god, it was _me_? I was destined to be the mother?"

"Apparently so," Sheppard whispered, avoiding eye contact with the doctor.

"But that's impossible. I don't even like kids!"

The End


End file.
